With Japanese Patent No. 3035601, there is mentioned a problem for an automatic analyzer of disposable type that although the apparatus is simplified in terms of construction and cost for manufacturing the apparatus is reduced, it has problems as high running cost and inefficient resource savings.
Japanese Patent No. 3035601 proposes the following construction to solve the problem. Absorbance of a dried reaction vessel without a specimen contained therein is measured by a light measuring apparatus. If an absorbance value obtained by the measurement is not within a predetermined range having an upper limit value and a lower limit value, the apparatus is controlled not to inject a specimen into the reaction vessel.
An apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3035601 measures absorbance, i.e., so-called air blank value or a cuvette blank value of an empty vessel. If the absorbance value is not within the predetermined range, a specimen is not injected into the vessel, as explained above. Thus, it can prevent a vessel from receiving a specimen and making a measurement, with the container having been not washed and been contaminated. It has been said that resultant accuracy of measurement is increased.
It has also been said that the construction of the analyzer can be greatly simplified, since a washing device is not required thereby.
But, it is to be noted that with the apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3035601, reaction vessels are washed after their uses by a washing device installed outside of the apparatus. Thus, the washing of reaction vessels will be burdensome. Further, a cost to clean reaction vessels for reuse will be high. Particularly, a cost of the pure water required for the washing becomes considerably high in certain countries and in areas. Thus, with the apparatus disclosed in Japanese patent No. 3035601, improvements should be made from viewpoints of washing reaction vessels and of reducing amounts of pure water to be used.